Ghost Roads
by Windwalker
Summary: The Shining'. Even in the grand scheme of things, minor characters are majorly affected. Rating for certain words used in context of characters.


*Ghost Roads*  
  
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I can smell the boy, a combination of sweat, flesh but most of all fear. A cornucopia of scents that I can't help but savor. His fear is a tantalizing treat, tasting it, reveling in it. I want to eat that scent, swallow the boy tear him limb from limb, hear the screams and terror in his soft throat, it reviles me, sends me into turmoil. I want to eat the source of that treat but I also don't want to eat him. I can't help either one, I refuse to eat him but I would not be able to help myself. The Overlook is cruel.  
  
Run boy, I scream in my head, run before I get my teeth into you. I don't want to hurt you but I will. I will chase you down but I cry at the thought. Damn the Overlook, I never wanted this, but as always it's, down boy, beg laddie, roll over, heel, scream mutt. I'm the hotel's bloody pet, so run boy I will kill if I catch you but I wish not to. I don't want to cause you more suffering but I will. My nature is the Hotel's nature but the real me, deep down, all but devoured by this awful place, still holds true. I watch while I growl. I watch while I chase. I watch in the chasm of my incorporeal form as the beast speaks in my tongue. Run boy save us both.  
  
He understands! Hallelujah, he understands or at least he knows what will become of him if he does not run. I lick my lips and I'm sure there is blood there. Its coppery taste on the taste buds of my tongue. That boy, he is special. I taste his blood though I have not to yet taste him. He is strong and over powering in vitality. Run, please boy run! Your life force is more then I can bare. The beast without, a dumber creature then I wants you, desperately. The Overlook has given it a hankering for your flesh. Damn it to hell! Damn me to hell! Go save yourself.  
  
The boy goes in a fluttering of feet and the beast looses interest. The Overlook it seems is not quite ready to take that succulent child. Memory mean while envelopes me like the reapers cloak. I remember the past and remember my foolish desires. I hate what I was. I hate me. My body dances on its feet, dancing the red masque. Saliva frothing from my mouth spools to the floor, images crushing my spirit. Rage, once upon a time I was angry but that fades and once more my sentinel insanity turns the beast to theatrics.  
  
Woe to me but I earned this. I asked for this, begged for it. Why did I? Why am I such a fool? I don't know why I do the things I do. Once upon a time I did. Once when I was a boy, like the one this demon place wants so badly to take I wanted a good future. I've fallen along the way, falling to the pits of hell from my innocent zenith. Love, it was never love. Such a fool am I to believe it was, such a bigger fool to beg for it even when I knew it was not to be. It was not love but the devils version, lust. The need for punishment in the guise of love. I blindly thought wrong but even when I knew, knew it was a lie and a false hope I still asked , still begged., raged at the world for my own self pity and fault, suffered for my obsession. An obsession much like the Overlook has for the child. It wants , it needs. I needed love then. Oh what a fool am I. What a fool! And here I am , damned.  
  
The other side, that which the Overlook has disposed to be my master whines eagerly, a tempting insanity wanting full control. If no-one was here. No flesh for this beast to bite and tear. I would gladly let it free. Let it take me over, soul and being. It would release me from my misery, take away that which is left of my humanity, take my body as its own and let my spirit sail away from existence. Even now I am so close to letting it have its way but that child, that beautiful shining child, he is special, innocent, youth. To risk my eternal freedom to take away his, that would be unforgivable. I'm sure the Overlook would call me back like an obedient little pet anyway, just so I would know what terrible fate I have given him in return for my own selfish needs. My needs which brought me to hell. I could not take that, but worse would be the taking of a life. One that grows beyond his boundaries, one that shines brightly in a darkening time, one that is a candle for souls to be drawn too. He gives hope and that spurns me. Even in damnation he gives me something within me, even in absolute misery he gives me something which has never existed in me before.  
  
The beast that snarls in my voice, it pauses despite it's evil, pauses despite its lust for raw , living meat. Even under the hotels influence, its birth father, it hinders. I can taste the blood again, I can taste it's/my eagerly licking lips, yet despite all this need it pauses. The pauses are not enough for the Overlook to detect, with many strings to pull it has little time to examine each and every puppet, but me and the beast are one now I'm dead and I can feel it. When the boy's face creeps around the corner like a scurrying mouse in a maze, the creature halts, barely for a second but I can feel its confusion. The beast is not full of thought for food it seems. Curiosity is there, slight like a feather on a cheek but there nonetheless. In that pause, me and the creature are of one mind. Strange to have the same thought and moment of unity, strange but comforting in a way. It gives me an idea.  
  
In that moment we are one and in that moment hope lives anew. Never ever, have I considered this before. The beast and me have always been at odds, struggling on each end of his rope to take command, but I have never thought to try and stop fighting for dominance in exchange for understanding. I have never before in my current state tried to find an affinity with my dual personality. It snarls, it can perceive that thought and it, no 'he', is not entirely happy. The blood lust it craves for, desires, is being subverted by my considering. In that one idea I have taken away its soul purpose. Peculiar. One change of mind and suddenly me and the beast are no longer the same as we once were. I am thinking beyond my fate and the creature is thinking beyond his next meal and now we are intertwined.  
  
Thankfully even if nothing comes to this moment of joint clarity the boy's scent has faded. I'm sure not for long, but for now the beast is distracted, nervous and the boy is free for a little longer or as long as the Overlook decree's.  
  
My God! It feels beyond the need. Maybe, dear lord maybe me and the beast are one and the same. Maybe my desperate need for being domineered gave creation to the monster. Maybe I am the father of him and not the Overlook. Maybe the Overlook used what was within the boy to give life to my need. To give life to the part of me that led me to death. What of the others? What of the other souls lost in this place? Could it be the same for them. The Overlook granting life to their darkest parts and using them thus?  
  
The beast agrees. Dear me, the beast in its simple mind agrees. I have connected. I have connected to my master or is he now my pet? My equal? Me? Am I deluding myself of these thoughts? I could be wrong, could be hoping to believe there is a chance for me to be wholly free when in fact nothing has changed. Minutes ago my afterlife was horrid and understood and now its all changed. I know nothing.  
  
The beast chuckles????????????  
  
Humour too. What next? It still spits saliva and still yelps, snarls and pulls tricks. Still froths like the rabid creature it had always seemed to me before. Yet it has grown. Craziness and desperation, me and the Overlook's creation have bonded.  
  
Hahahahaha! It is all a joke, all a farce. I'm thinking of things that cannot be. Me and the creature that was once my body have nothing in common. It is my devil and I am it's follower. Nothing more, nothing more. Heehee. Perhaps I am crazy all along, all of me, every last god-damned part.  
  
I'm no longer in the hallway it seems. Drafted along I am now in the ballroom. A memory, a fate, a drifter on the strings of a crossroad banjo player.  
  
I, I can recall this. The dog whines. Easy boy. Teehee. Take me away! Please take me away!  
  
Rowf! Rowf! Heehehehehe.  
  
'Sit boy, sit.'  
  
It's like before. Struggling with identity I have strayed to the past and present. The Overlook is cruelty personified.  
  
I sit at command. HE, tells me. Bastard. Why I cared I don't know.  
  
I'm not the only obedient pet. That which takes my form is a pet of the Hotel too. In this we are one. Only this. Or not? Desire it may be, but still it has limits.  
  
I can see through pin hole slits, him. I could growl at him if I tried but all I/we are doing is sitting up and begging like a fool. The blood is drowned in alcohol, I lap it up like the dog that I am. The taste of blood has faded but for foolish sake it is not worth it. The beast prefers the taste of blood too.  
  
The shame is too great and I let this desperation slide me back from my surroundings. For a short moment, the boy is a faint murmur, the voices a cacophony in a world of shadow. A focal light dances far away in the distance. This is where I first was when death claimed me. Pain brings me back quickly, the beast has failed to perform a trick and feels obliged to share the suffering. I feel a little sympathetic but I still hate it.  
  
'Good boy'. What a laugh. I scream, wet myself and I'm lost again in the mist. Detached? I'm on a full out loop here.  
  
An inordinate amount of time passes and a pale shadow of my former self emerges. Dragged to the front of reality, abysmal as it is I am left in confusion. The dog has called me. It sits on my butt, scratching an ear bloody raw and whines. Above in the upper epsilons of the Hotel the trail of feet marched on.  
  
The Overlook has decided to end its game and has grown. It no longer has an interest in anything but the boy. For the time me and the beast are alone. That boys glorious light has given birth to all of us. I feel a little Independence. The beast though is strangely silent. Purposeless it appears to be confused as to what to do. It has never had such full life before. My life, my bloody former life.  
  
It is not alone, never alone. I'm still with it of course but now the balance is more even whilst the Overlook is occupied. I feel tempted to mentally pat the creature but my hatred of it still harbours strong. Strange that I should feel more then that simple, deep rooted instinct of hatred for it. My prison warden and cell but the boy has given me and it more then what we had before now. Before he came I was but a ghost of a ghost.  
  
The Overlook is closing in the boy must run, will run, has to. I urge him to. Leave and survive I cry. Leave so I do not have to exist here any more. I can hear him, feel him running. Run! Run! The beast lost with nothing finds me with something and decides to concur. I hate you, let me hate you. I will beg to hate it for all eternity yet minutes, hours have gradually changed that to grudging?????? Sympathy???  
  
I rush of power flows through my incorporeal corpse. The boy! The father- thing/Overlook taunts him, taunts him terribly. While the boy cornered looks on. The child is not once what he was. His face older an understanding belying his age plastered there. He speaks and I only hope it is to scream then to run but no. Something else comes from his lips, something that strikes terror into the Overlook.  
  
??????????????????????????????  
  
It is a marvelous and most wonderful thing. I can feel the fear all around. The beast whimpers more, scratching my ear right off, I don't care. I DON'T CARE!  
  
RUN BOY! RUN! RUN! RUN! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  
  
Joy, pure unadulterated joy fills me. The Overlook forgot! It forgot! Its stolen body runs to the basement, where the boiler is and every fiber wishes him not to make it. The boy I wish to reach his destination, he deserves to live. After all this he deserves it. I am seeing many things as one. I see the child running, running with the nigger and woman. I see the father-thing running, running with fear. I see the boiler's temperature gauge rising, rising like my hope. I see and what I see is pleasing.  
  
Out of the Hotel the people leave, the mother, the cook and the candle. The Overlook is not going to make it. The clock is ticking. Finally time has moved beyond that eternal midnight. It ticks like the proverbial death watch and I wait for the house to crumble. Taking me with it. Freedom is within my grasp. The beast howls, over and over and over. I let it. Let it abandon hope while mine increases. The boiler it shakes, it rattles away as it goes out of control. I cheer! I howl!  
  
Then the world ends. In a bright and wondrous moment the boiler explodes. A light in equal to the boy's rises from the depths of the Hotel. Rising out from below. The Lobby, the kitchen, the ballroom, it all goes away from reality each level dissolving in this beautiful ethereal glow. I feel it washing over me, washing away my sin and misery. The living are safe.  
  
Thank you boy! I cry as the light fades. Thank you. The Overlook is perishing and me with it but I don't care. I'm free!  
  
In my extinguishing the beast whispers, whispers in my ear.  
  
Free, and in this one word we truly are one.  
  
Thank you boy. I think one last time, then the end comes and the light shines at it's brightest.  
  
Free!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
  
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AN:  
  
I always felt a little sympathetic to a certain very minor character in Stephen King's 'The Shining'. Which gave thought to writing a small first person view from their point in the book.  
  
Any one familiar with the book should recognise the character. A bit part person whose only name I've got to refer to is 'Roger'. The dogman that was infered to be in a former gay relationship wth the original owner of The Overlook, 'Harry Derwent'.  
  
I've not written in a awhile and this probably shows. Being the time of year as well I have not had much time to be entirely thorough with the editing. Hope all of you that have read it enjoyed it. 


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